


Do Not Wait, I'll Be There

by thejollymilano



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, It (2017) - Freeform, It Chapter Two, M/M, Reddie, Richie x Eddie, Suicide, r + e, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 14:51:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20798417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejollymilano/pseuds/thejollymilano
Summary: Richie couldn’t bare to leave Eddie alone in the cistern.Or, a canon divergence where Richie stays behind with Eddie as Neibolt collapses.





	Do Not Wait, I'll Be There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calrissianns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissianns/gifts).

> I wrote this fic listening to “Do Not Wait” by the Wallows, and I highly suggest listening to it while reading, it’ll add to the mood. 
> 
> Near the end, Richie's inner dialogue/his thoughts as everything is going down is inspired by a conversation my friend @inevetiabletony on tumblr and I had! Happy Reddie endings and Reddie family headcannons are so wholesome, and what they really deserved! 
> 
> Just as a warning: this is not a happy go lucky fic, it doesn’t end on a happy note like my other reddie fics. It’s angst with the losers club feels, but it does have themes of suicide (even if it’s not directly suicide, this is a “what if” fic in which Richie decides he can’t live without Eddie and decides to stay with him). If that's triggering for you, PLEASE be careful while reading, because while it's not graphic I don't want anyone to be triggered. Please know, I do not think suicide is the answer - I know friends and family members who have been personally affected by suicide, and it’s traumatizing. Please, if you’re considering self harm or suicide, reach out to somebody. Take care of yourself, my friends! I love you!
> 
> Now, sit back, relax, enjoy but you might want to have tissues nearby (I cried while reading this)!
> 
> (for my friends @kxbooms and @inevitabletony >3)

If you had asked him twenty eight years ago, if he was in love with a boy, Richie Tozier would have denied it with his heart thumping loudly in his chest, because deep down he knew it wasn’t true but he’d be damned if he admitted it to his homophobic town. But now forty, and seeing the love of his life dying in front of him, there was no denying that he couldn’t live without Eddie Kasprak. 

And now, standing with the last of the Losers as they watched _ It _disintegrate and turn into nothingness, he knew what needed to be done. With that thought, he remembered where he left him, bloodied and battered, while he rejoined the fight. 

“Eddie - Eddie!” Richie stuttered, turning around and running towards the man he loved. When he got there, he saw that Eddie wasn’t unmoving; his eyes were closed, skin sickly pale. “Eds, wake up, listen! We did it, man, we-” He froze.

Eddie wasn’t moving.

_ He wasn’t fucking moving. _

He could distantly hear the Losers muffled sobs, their whimpers echoing in his ears but he couldn’t focus on anything because _ Eddie wasn’t moving. _

“R-Richie,” Bill stuttered, his voice cracking on some syllables. “He-He-He’s gone.”

That seemed to snap him into focus. _ Gone? _ He wasn’t gone, there was no way he was ‘_gone, _’ he was going to be okay.

‘_He was okay, he was okay, he was going to be okay,’ _Richie repeated in his head like a mantra. 

“No, he’s not. He’s just hurt,” Richie said firmly as he turned his head, determination lighting his eyes. “We-We’ve gotta get him out of here. Help me, please? Ben?” 

He turned to glance at Ben, but his friend shuffled nervously on his feet, slightly shaking his head while tears pooled in his glossy eyes. 

Richie turned his attention back to Eddie, studying his wound and trying to calculate the risks of the different ways he should carry him back (_he mentally scoffed, thinking how ‘isn’t that Eddie’s job? Analyzing risks?’ _ ), desperately trying to think of a way to get Eddie out of there. But Eddie was turning so pale, he couldn’t decide which was more sickening - his cold skin or all the blood? _ And oh fuck, there was so much blood. _

“Richie?” Beverly sobbed, and Richie’s head fell. If there was anyone in the group he would hear reason from right now, it would be Stan or Bev. But Stan wasn’t here. _ He _ was dead, _Eddie_ was going to be okay. _ He _ had _ to be okay, Richie needed him to be. _

“What?” He lifted his eyes to Bev’s, seeing the sorrowful tears fall from her eyes.

“Honey - Honey, he’s dead.”

And those were the words that finally shattered him. 

_ He’s dead. Not gone - Dead. _

Richie felt like his world was collapsing and he had no say in it. He never got to say goodbye. _ He never got to say fucking goodbye to the man he’s loved for the last twenty eight years. _If this was supposed to be some sick, cruel joke, Richie wasn’t laughing. 

He cradled Eddie’s body, burrowing his nose into his shoulder as he sobbed. He just sobbed. 

He felt hands grip at his shoulders, attempting to pry him away from Eddie as the ground beneath them began to shake and the walls of the cistern tremble, but there was no way in hell Richie was going to let him go. 

“We can still help him!” He screamed, his voice hoarse as his hid his face in the crook of Eddie’s neck. “_ Guys! _ We can still help him!”

“Rich, we’ve gotta go!”

“You have to let him go, man!”

“Richie, let’s go!”

Their voices were drowned out by the sound of the cistern crashing in on itself, and his own pleas. _ He couldn’t leave Eddie alone down here, he just couldn’t. _

“Let me go!” Richie shouted, fighting against his friends as they tried to separate him from Eddie. “Guys, let me go!”

“What?” He heard Mike question incredulously. “No! We’ve gotta go, man!”

“Then leave me here, dammit!_ I’m not leaving him! _” His voice was going to go hoarse at this rate, from all this screaming.

The Losers froze, and he felt them loosen their grip on him. 

“You … You can’t mean that, Richie,” Beverly crouched beside him, cupping his cheek to face her so he’d look her in the eye. “Honey, I’m so sorry. But, h-he’s not coming back.”

“I know that,” He nodded, daring himself to say it even while his conscious was still trying to tell him otherwise, trying to give him more false hope. “_I know that. _ But I … Bev, I _ can’t. _” 

Bill crouched on his other side, and despite their world quite literally crashing on them, time seemed to move ever so slowly. 

“R-Ri-Richie, you k-know what it means if you stay,” Bill choked on his words. “Yo-You-You’ll die.”

Richie exhaled deeply, letting the words sink in. 

If he stays, that means suicide. If he leaves with the Losers, he’ll survive but wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for leaving Eddie. _ He couldn’t bare the thought of living without Eddie. He just couldn’t. _

“You have to let me do this, Bill,” Richie kept one arm holding onto Eddie, but used the other to grasp onto his old friends’ shoulder. “This is _ my _choice,” Bill sobbed and opened his mouth to say something, but the words kept fumbling off his tongue. Richie squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. “I want this. This is not on you.”

“I …” Bill sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“It’s okay, man,” Richie let go of Eddie briefly to hug his friend goodbye. He couldn’t say goodbye to the love of his life, but he had one ounce of control to be able to hug his dearest friends goodbye and he sure as hell was gonna do just that. “I love you, Bill.”

“I lo-love you, too,” Bill clapped his back. “You’re my best friend, you know that? Even when I punched you in the face,” Despite the emptiness that has possessed him, Richie felt a chuckle rumble deep within his chest. “Sorry about t-th-that, by the w-way.”

“It’s all right, besides you punch like a girl,” Bill snorted tearfully at that, reluctantly pulling away from his best friend so that Mike and Bill could say their goodbyes. 

Ben embraced Richie, his strong arms holding him tight. “You really are gorgeous, you know,” Ben also snorted to his friend’s farewell joke. “What? I mean it.”

“I’m gonna miss you, Rich,” Ben croaked, and Richie echoed it back before they hugged one last time and Mike took his place.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He asked, his eyes begging Richie to take it back, but he stood by what he said.

“I’m sure, man. I’m sure,” He hugged his beloved friend, who just nodded solemnly as he returned the gesture. “You’re gonna be okay, Mike. Go to Florida, get the fuck out of here man, you deserve it.”

Mike’s head fell for a moment, a sad smile on his lips, “I love you, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, man,” Richie nodded as Mike stood up, wiping his tears. “I love you, too,” He whispered.

The Losers stepped aside, waiting in a small huddle of despair all while Bev remained by Richie’s side.

_ She knew. _

If any of them knew, besides Stan, that he loved Eddie, it was Beverly. But nevertheless, he needed to voice it. It needed to be said out loud to someone who could hear it before he died.

“I loved him, Bev,” He shrugged one shoulder sadly. He heard the faint gasps of the guys behind him, but it didn’t sound like they were surprised. More sad, remorseful. _ Understanding. _“I loved him.”

“I know, Honey,” She placed her hand gingerly on his shoulder. 

“And I never got the chance to say it,” His voice cracked, his throat feeling dry and scratchy.

“He knew, Richie. Trust me, he knew,” She rested her temple against his comfortingly.

He sniffed as he looked down at Eddie again, holding his hand. “How can you be so sure?”

“When you love someone, you know,” Richie looked back up at her, seeing the sincerity in her eyes. “I love you, Richie. Eddie was loved, and so are you. So are you, you have to know that.”

For what felt like the hundredth time in the last two minutes, Richie gave his friend as much as a smile as he could manage, and said, “I know, Bev. I love you, too.”

As he embraced his last friend, the weight of the situation came crashing down on him and he allowed himself to hug her a moment longer as a broken sob escaped his lips. Not a second later did the Losers come back, and in a flashback to the last time they were down here all together twenty seven years ago, they held each other as if their lives depended on it. Together, they cried. They remembered who they were and who they are now, and all they’ve gone through together, all they’ve endured. All the pain, all the highs and lows, before they moved out of Derry, they did it all together. Because after all, Losers have got to stay together. 

But it doesn’t always play out that way. Not in his case, not in Stan’s, not in Eddie’s. Not in His. They would be with the rest of their friends in spirit and memories. 

Richie knew he was cutting his time with them short, that he could’ve lived on for many years and put on yet another facade to please the people around him. But he would be living yet another lie. He would be miserable, knowing he was alive while the man he loved was not, and he was too scared to go back and meet another man. _ No one could replace his Eddie. _

With one last sorrowful hug, they pulled apart.

“You guys need to go,” Richie said when nearby rubble crashed down. “_Now. _”

They stood up and began to run away, only to turn around. Richie, who was leaning over Eddie again and holding his hand, smiled at his friends one last time. Their own smiles tried to mirror his, but they struggled through their tears.

And with that, the Losers Club had left, and Richie was alone with the corpse of the love of his life. 

Richie and Eddie trembled as their entire surroundings shook, the walls caving in. Knowing he’d have only moments left, he cupped Eddie’s uninjured cheek, studying him, memorizing him, trying to remember every freckle, every dimple, every stretch mark on his face from all his smiling and frowning. If the sky was falling - which it technically was, then Eddie’s smile would be the last thing Richie would want to see. But because of how things played out, holding him in his arms would need to be the next best thing. 

Oh, what Richie would’ve given to say goodbye to Eddie, to tell him he loved him. They were robbed of ‘_what could have been_.’ Richie could almost see it: he would wake up beside Eddie, their daughter waking them both up by jumping on their bed while their Pomeranian barked by their bed. He would take their kid to school, and meet with Eddie on their lunch breaks. Eddie would sit in the front row at his shows, laughing the hardest at all his jokes, and he would start writing his own material because it was Eddie’s laugh that he wanted to hear the most. 

All of that, all of what _ ‘could have been’ _was taken from them, and in that moment, Richie never felt more angry. Angry at that fucking clown for taking it from them, angry at Bowers for humiliating him and making him feel ashamed of who he is, at making him feel like he had to _hide_ \- angry at himself for not saying anything sooner. He was angry, and heartbroken, and ever so in love with his best friend Eddie Kaspbrak. 

He heard the rattling above them, and looked up to see the rocks and rubble that were about to fall on them. Leaning more heavily into Eddie, hiding his face in his shoulder, he repeated a new mantra.

“I love you, Eds. I love you, I fucking love you,” He repeated. The tumbling above them echoed. “Jesus fuck,” He panicked for a moment before focusing back on Eddie and channeling all his fear and heartache into those three words, “I love you. I know you can’t hear me, but goddammit, I -”

He heard the whistling of falling rubble, and a moment later all his pain, all his sorrow and everything he held dear - all of it faded as his vision went dark.

The clown was dead, Neibolt collapsed into a pile of ash and broken wood, and Richie could rest in peace with his first love and best friend.

** _THE END. _ **

**Author's Note:**

> I SUCK at endings, especially for angsty fics, sorry! But I hope you enjoyed nevertheless :')


End file.
